Gap insurance for private motor cars - is it worth taking?

Question

I bought a new car on hire purchase. I was offered Gap Insurance on it for £135 I think. Basically if the car is written off in an accident the insurance company will make up the difference of the financial settlement my car insurance company will make on a written off vehicle i.e. if I owe more on finance than the vehicle is worth at the time Gap will make up the difference.

Also I wrote my previous car off in an accident and the first question my insurance company asked me was is the vehicle obtained through hire purchase. That vehicle was not but would it have made a difference to a settlement if it had have been?

I really mistrust the advise of car sales advisers. Thats why I'm asking here. They tried to sell me a payment protection policy. I challenged them that the cover offered was a complete joke. The girl said she should'nt be telling me this but she fully agrees and that they are rubbish.

Answer 1

Yes, gap insurance is definately worth it. You're not going to get anywhere near enough money to buy a replacement on just normal insurance. So if you get gap insurance, you won't be hugely out of pocket if something happens to your car.

Answer 2

When your previous car was written off, the reason the insurers wil have asked about HP is that the HP company will have owned the car, and when they write a car off it becomes the property of the insurance company. Therefore although they would probably have made the same value of settlement, they would have to have paid any outstanding finance before they could claim ownership of the car - you would have been paid the remainder of the settlement after the outstanding finance had been paid.

Gap insurance is only necessary if at any point the value of the car is going to be less than the outstanding finance. If you buy a new £15,000 car for £1,000 deposit, then the next day you will owe £14,000 on a car only worth £13,000 (because a car always loses a huge amount of value as soon as someone registers it).
In this case Gap insurance may be useful - especially if you have gone for either a long payment period or a high final value to keep monthly payments low.

However, if you were to buy the same car with a £5,000 deposit, financed for two years and a zero final payment, the chances are that the outstanding finance will never be more than the value of the car, so Gap insurance will never be useful.

Answer 3

The value of a vehicle at the time of loss doesn't vary because of the method used to acquire it in the first place, to answer your second question

As to gap insurance, yes, it can be worthwhile to get. No one ever plans to have the vehicle destroyed beyond ability to be fixed, or burned up in a fire, or stolen, but it does happen, and then your insurance only gives you the value of it at the time of loss, which can be far under what you owe. The finance company of course still wants their money back, so you find yourself without a car and in debt.

That being said, NEVER buy it from the dealer. They make big money selling the policy. Buy it directly from an insurance broker (sometimes they call it VSI, or vendor's single interest rather than GAP) and save about a third.

Answer 4

If you have paid a third off already then then 'finance' gap seems pretty pointless. Return to Invoice or Vehicle Replacement insurance would seem much better. As you say you can find comparable cover online far cheaper and you can get up to 4 year cover, and some policies are transferable if you change your car.There are even brokers let you pay by instalments interest free. If you like the idea of it,then cancel your dealers and buy online.

Answer 5

You are probably going to get alot of mixed reviews saying things towards and against the policy. However I personally think it's a waste of money. They advise that you will be ale to claim back the difference between the finance and the cars value at the time of the write-off, for example

£10,000 worth of finance
£7,000 car value
£3,000 payout from gap insurance

however, they fail to tell you that most insurance companies use a different valuation system than say parkers, they will give you bottom end value, but the gap insurance company will look at the parkers guide so 99% of the time you have a shortfall anyway.

How likely are you to write your car off anyway!?
It isn't worth the paper it's writen in my point of view

Answer 6

Gap insurance covers quite a short period and you have to write-off your car during that period and as it is a new car you are generally a careful driver in the early days of ownership so the chances are quite small.

Answer 7

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RE: Gap insurance for private motor cars - is it worth taking?

Answer 8

I don't know if this will help but a friend of mine just had her car stolen and she had gap insurance so in her case yes it was worth taking

Answer 9

YES GAP INSURANCE IS WORTH WHILE THE SALESMAN MAKES COMMISSION ON IT BUT IF YOUR CAR IS WRITTEN OFF THEY PAY THE SHORT FALL AND YOU CAN GO AND BUY A NEW CAR WITHOUT HASSLE SO GO FOR IT